


You kissed me

by lynxofspace



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:55:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26744737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynxofspace/pseuds/lynxofspace
Summary: Feelings being discovered
Relationships: Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 382





	You kissed me

Reggie found himself staring at Luke’s arms while the band was rehearsing, he told himself he was jealous that he would never be that buff. It was only a half lie. 

He had thought a lot about being dead lately, and that it meant that his body would never change. He didn’t mind not growing old, but never being able to grow a beard, grow his hair out, get a tattoo, these were the things that were starting to dawn on him.

At least he wasn’t going through it alone. He wondered if his friends ever had thoughts like this, though why would they, they were perfect. Especially Luke. 

Luke smiled at Julie as the two sang their duet, and Reggie’s heart skipped a beat. The two of them were so cute together. Of course two beautiful people would be beautiful together. 

“Reggie, this is the part where you come over here,” Luke said.

Reggie, still lost in thought, walked over to sing in the same microphone as Luke, the way they had rehearsed it. Had he really just called Luke beautiful? He supposed it was true, if you were into that. 

Luke looked him in the eyes while they sang and Reggie’s stomach twisted. They had done this a million times, why was it different now? He thought back to the day before when Luke had demonstrated his charisma by singing to him and how it had left him speechless. Luke was a charismatic person, so what if Reggie could see that?

“Are you okay, dude?” Luke asked and put a hand on Reggie’s shoulder.

It was clearly meant to be comforting, but right now it was the last thing he needed. “Yeah, I just need to sit down for a second,” Reggie replied and took a seat on the couch. 

“Aren’t you ghosts? I didn’t think you got lightheaded.” Julie looked at him worriedly.

“I get lightheaded all the time around Willie,” Alex interjected. 

“Somehow I don’t think that’s the same thing,” Luke joked. 

But it kind of was, wasn’t it? “I feel better already,” Reggie said. “Let’s get back to work.”

Reggie spent the rest of the practice session thinking about his parents. He didn’t like to think about them, it always made him feel sad, especially since he hadn’t been able to locate the 2020 versions of them. At this point though, he’d take the sadness over thinking about Luke. Whatever this was, it would pass. 

_____________

But it didn’t. He had made it through the week, and despite the episode the week before, he was pretty sure none of his friends had noticed the few stolen glances. 

He had spent as little time with Luke as he could that week. His excuses were lame, even he knew that, but out of sight, out of mind, right? Luke hadn’t questioned it.

Today, though, today they were performing. In front of an audience, although it wasn’t the audience that made him nervous. 

The boys had agreed to get ready together at the studio before going to the gig. When Reggie poofed in Luke was already shirtless. Because why wouldn’t he be? Reggie turned around immediately. 

“Chill dude, you’ve seen me shirtless like a million times. You’ve seen me wearing less than this,” Luke joked.

It was true, they had never been a prudish group. He turned to face Luke and damn… Reggie was pretty sure the butterflies in his stomach had butterflies in their stomachs. 

If Luke noticed him staring, he didn’t say anything. He found a shirt in one of his bags and put it on, then threw the bag of Reggie’s clothes at Reggie. “Get ready, we need to be there in 10 minutes.”

Alex poofed in and gave Luke two thumbs up after taking in what he was wearing, a black tank top and a black sleeveless jacket. Alex quickly pulled off his own shirt and put on a black one. “Come on, Reggie,” he said when he saw Reggie standing there with his bag of clothes in his hands. “We only have like 8 minutes.”

Luckily Reggie’s outfit didn’t need to change much to match the theme of the night: black. He put on a fresh t-shirt and put his leather jacket over it. “I’m ready.”

___________

They made their entrance when Julie had just finished the first verse, like they did with most of their songs. The audience absolutely loved it. When he was out there, Reggie forgot about everything. All that mattered out there was the beat of the music and his fingers on the stings. There was nothing he loved more than that feeling. He soaked in the applause for as long as he could.   
Being the ghosts that they were, they poofed out right after the performance, when they could no longer be seen. Alex stayed behind to talk to Willie, who had been watching the performance with the rest of the crowd. Julie, of course, couldn’t just poof home, which meant that Reggie and Luke were alone. This was the part Reggie had dreaded all night. 

“We rocked it!” Luke yelled. He was still high on adrenaline and dancing around the studio humming. 

“We sure did,” Reggie said, his mind elsewhere.

“I think there were some scouts out there.” Luke smiled from across the room. “I have a good feeling about this.”

Reggie couldn’t help but smile at that. He was sure he’d be right there with him, jumping around, had this been a week ago. Tonight his adrenaline just made his heart beat even faster around Luke, at least now that there was no longer a crowd to focus it on. “Just don’t get your hopes too high, okay?” 

Luke walked over to Reggie and put his hands on Reggie’s shoulders. He looked him directly in the eyes and said “we killed it tonight. You killed it tonight.”

Without thinking, Reggie closed the distance between them and kissed Luke, on the lips. Luke didn’t pull away. When Reggie’s mind finally realized what he was doing, he stopped. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, while looking at the floor, before walking away and poofing out of the room. 

________________

Reggie was already long gone by the time Luke’s brain had processed what happened. Did that just happen? Part of him wanted to run after him, but what would he say? Besides, Reggie could be anywhere in the world right now. That did just happen, right?

How could he have missed this? He had noticed Reggie acting a little off the last week, but he had assumed that Reggie had found his family or something. In hindsight, this did all happen after that day he proved he had chemistry with all his singing partners, and Reggie had called him hot that day. 

Luke hated the thought of Reggie not feeling like he could tell Luke about questioning his sexuality. Luke had questioned his many times, and he still wasn’t a hundred percent sure. He had to know Luke wasn’t homophobic. 

After the immediate worry about Reggie passed, he had time to think about his own feelings. He thought about the kiss again. He felt it again. Despite being in a semi popular rock band in the 90s, Luke hadn’t kissed a whole lot of people. Was it always like that? It had taken his breath away. 

____________

Reggie was laying on Julie’s bed when she got back, head facing her pillow. She was going to yell at him for invading her privacy, but something about him made her change her mind. “Reggie? Are you okay?” she asked.

No answer. 

She walked over to the bed and tapped him on the shoulder. “Reg?” He turned around, and she could see that his eyes were red.

“I messed up,” he said. 

“Messed up how?” she asked. The pain on his face was obvious.

“I kissed Luke.”

She felt something in her heart. She wasn’t sure if it was empathy for Reggie or jealousy because Luke kissed someone else. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry, I know you like him too.”

She did. A lot. But that didn’t matter right now, her friend was hurting. “It’s okay. What did he say?” 

“I didn’t stick around for that part,” Reggie said and lay back down.

“Julie? You home?” she heard from downstairs. 

____________________

Luke thought he heard Julie and her family come home so he figured he’d ask if she had heard from Reggie. It had been a little over an hour, and although ghosts couldn’t get into too much trouble, he was still worried about him. 

“Julie? You home?” he yelled from just inside the door. 

She came down to where he could see her and gestured for him to follow. Ray and Carlos were hanging out in the living room. He followed her up the stairs, but before she opened the door she looked at him and said “he told me what happened.”

“Oh,” Luke said. He wished Reggie had felt safe enough to talk to him directly.

“What are you gonna say?” she asked. 

He honestly didn’t know. He had had an hour to think about it. He opened the door and closed it behind him, leaving Julie out in the hallway. “Hey, Reggie.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” Reggie said softly. 

“You don’t have to be sorry,” he said in a firm voice. “And you didn’t have to run away.” He hated that he even had to say the words. 

“I don’t know what came over me.” Reggie finally made eye contact. 

“You know I don’t care if you like boys.” Luke had spent a lot of nights on the internet since he got to 2020. He caught himself up on politics and pop culture. There were things about the new millennium he couldn’t stand, but there were plenty of positives to even the scale. The LGBT+ movements had come a long way, and same-sex marriage was legal in most of the developed world. He learned about sexualities and terms he had never even heard of, that were now commonly used. “Apparently most people don’t in 2020. It’s okay to want to explore that.”

“You’re a good friend, Luke.” 

Luke smiled. “You can talk to me about anything.” He still didn’t know why Reggie had kissed him, specifically, but he didn’t want to push. At least now he had made it clear that he could talk to him about it when he was ready. He put his hand on Reggie’s shoulder. “Are we good?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Reggie smiled. 

___________

The phantoms met up in the studio when Alex got back from his date with Willie. Reggie was feeling a lot better, thankful that Luke hadn’t made a big deal out of it. Although it had been a big deal, to Reggie. He could no longer lie to himself, tell himself that he didn’t have a major crush on his best friend. And it meant that he was bisexual. Why was that so hard to come to terms with when he had no problem with his friends being gay?

“So how was your date?” Luke asked Alex teasingly. 

“Good, we went to this amazing spot with a beautiful view of the city.” Alex smiled as he told them.

Reggie could tell that Alex was head over heels in love with Willie. He wondered if he would ever find that. Of course he wouldn’t, he was a ghost. They couldn’t all be lucky enough to randomly stumble upon cute ghosts on the street. 

“What have you guys been up to?”

“I spent twenty minutes dancing around the studio. That was an amazing gig.” Luke said, without skipping a beat.

Reggie was once again thankful for his friends. It wasn’t the end of the world if Alex knew what had happened, especially since Julie knew, but the fact that Luke let Reggie make that decision meant a lot. “It really was.”

The band spent the rest of the night talking about the evening’s performance and all the ones they had coming up. There was no awkwardness. 

________________

Luke was amazed by Julie. She was beautiful, and her voice was unbelievable. More and more though, he caught his gaze drifting towards Reggie. Quick glances at first. Reggie also had a nice voice, he thought, when Reggie’s little solo line came up. 

It was true that he had been thinking a lot about Reggie ever since the kiss. His feelings were confusing. The more he played it over in his head, the more he realized just how much he liked it. Maybe the fact that he kept replaying it should have been his first hint? 

Julie’s solo came up and she once again had his attention. She was everything he dreamt of back in 1995, back when he was alive. Back when all he cared about was the future of the band and girls. He still cared about those things, but now they were both linked to one person. Without Julie he was just air, or random music coming out of nowhere. Or elevator music, as Reggie had described them. She meant a lot to him, to the whole band. 

They sang their duet and Luke wished they could do this forever. The Phantoms probably could do it forever, he thought, but Julie, Julie would grow up and eventually she might want to start a family. Luke liked the thought of having a family of his own, but he knew it wasn’t in the cards for him. Another thing a bad hotdog, of all things, took from him. Sure, he and Julie could have a fling now, but it would never be any more than that. Julie deserved more than that. 

The thought hurt less today than it did a week ago. He watched his friends play, they were amazing, as usual. Then Reggie smiled at him and his heart skipped a beat. That was the moment he knew. 

Sometime in the week that had passed, it became Reggie his thoughts drifted to when he zoned out. He had chalked it up to worry, but he couldn’t do that anymore. It no longer mattered what feelings he may or may not have had for Julie. 

When Luke wanted something, he went for it. He wasn’t sure what it was, exactly, that Reggie felt, but he intended to find out. He was gonna talk to him about it when they got some time alone together, that’s what he decided. But there he was, carefully putting his red bass guitar into its case. How had he never noticed how beautiful he was? Luke was an impulsive person, he took the steps over to where Reggie was standing and kissed him, right there, on the spot.

It was even better than the first time, now that he let himself feel every part of it. He didn’t care that Julie and Alex were probably staring. He put a hand on Reggie’s chest, carefully pushing him against the wall behind him, then he grabbed his face with both of his hands. When he finally let go of Reggie to get some air, he watched the other man fall to the floor against the wall. 

“That was... intense,” Alex said.

“Yeah,” Luke whispered in between breaths. He offered his hand to Reggie to help him up. 

_____

Luke kissed him. A million thoughts and feelings rushed through him. To say he didn’t see it coming was an understatement. 

When he could finally breathe again, he was on the floor. He accepted Luke’s hand and got back on his feet, surprised his legs were able to hold him up. “Did that just happen?”

“Yup,” Julie said.

Reggie looked from Julie to Alex to Luke. 

“I didn’t plan it,” Luke said. “You were just so cute with your messy hair and I couldn’t help it.”

“Maybe we should give these two a moment.” Julie gestured for Alex to follow her and the two left together. 

Silence filled the room. Reggie didn’t know what to think or say, his head was still in the clouds. Luke kissed him. He didn’t know what it meant, all he knew was that he never wanted him to stop.

“Are you okay?” Luke asked worriedly. “I’m sorry if I went too far. You kissed me, and at first I didn’t know how I felt, but then tonight I..”

Reggie silenced him with a kiss.


End file.
